Then again, maybe my fear of owning property comes from watching my parents struggle to live together before their separation. Maybe it stems from watching them do this clumsy dance around each other in the initial days of their trial separation, attempting to keep my brother and I in the house we’d grown up in, while trying not to live together. It was an awkward time, one I vaguely remember. What I remember most about that time, however, is love. Unadulterated, unequivocal love.

Having recently seen Kenneth Branagh and Chris Weitz’s recent adaptation of Cinderella, I had some words to say. I had fully expected it to be little more than another pointless adaptation, reiterating the problematic, misogynistic undertones of Disney’s 1950 animated classic. Thankfully, i was beautifully surprised. The film manages to maintain the structural integrity of the animated original, while making subtle alterations throughout the story to make it more feminism friendly. The changes are far from drastic, but rather are more akin to subtle tweaks that alter our perception of the piece.

Yes, Lilly James is tiny. Yes, tiny waisted women in Hollywood are causing issues with young girls and body image issues. However. She is not anorexic. I have seen her costume in person, and it is actually that size. She did not starve herself to be that size, she simply is that size. Much like Keira Knightly before her, she is falling victim to needless scrutiny about her form, and, frankly, I think it’s bullshit.

This is coming from a woman with an almost 30 inch waist, might I add. But body shaming as a whole needs to stop, altogether. Her natural thinness is as healthy as my natural hips and bust. As healthy as some plus-sized models who exercise several times a week, have great blood pressure, yet always seem to find themselves looking a little larger. What we should be focused on is health. Some women are naturally skinny. Shaming them for that – and they do get shamed for that – is as bad as shaming a woman who’s naturally a bit heavier for being that way. Bodies come in all shapes and sizes. So long as you’re healthy, not morbidly obese and saying you’re just curvaceous, or deathly thin and explaining away your jutting collarbone as fashionable, then you’re fine. Fuck the rest.

Teach your daughters, your nieces, your sisters, that it’s okay to look however you do so long as you are physically healthy. Eat properly, try and get some exercise on a daily basis, and learn to love and accept your shape. Teach these women in your lives that the women in magazines aren’t always healthy, but they’re not necessarily abnormal, either. Talk to them, listen to them, and help them recognize the beauty in their uniqueness.

And with that, I leave you with an excerpt from my Cinderella piece on Sound on Sight:

Yet, despite this portrait of Tremaine, and despite the legacy of Cinderella (1950), we are, as an audience, afforded one of the most beautiful luxuries of all – whimsical enchantment. Zooey Deschanel has frequently been accused of not being a real feminist because she wears dresses. Women throughout North America who dress without makeup, don’t shave their bodies, or have cellulite in their thighs are often dubbed man haters. The broad spectrum of ignorance that shrouds feminism is something most women deal with on a daily basis. You can’t have kids if you’re a feminist, because you think domesticity is always a bad thing – false. You can’t get married if you’re a feminist, because that’s a form of subordination – equally ridiculous. You must dress like a man or a lesbian (because, apparently, lesbians have a uniform that makes them blatantly visible to society) if you’re a feminist, because they don’t believe in being pretty – stop making a fool of yourself!

Feminist doesn’t mean we don’t like being feminine, or that we don’t enjoy whimsy, and escapism. We believe in gender equality, not gender superiority. We believe in the right to choose – to wear a dress, to have a child, to get married, to be a CEO. We believe in the right to fall in love, instead of being forced into an archaic system whereby marriage isn’t defined by partnership, but rather is defined by a power struggle of the sexes. We do not hate men, but rather love and appreciate them, especially those who recognize us as more than just baby factories, and afford us a level of autonomy that doesn’t divide the genders.

I wish there was something I could say that would make everything better. I wish I could tell you there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, and to just hang on a bit longer. That it will all feel better in a moment. But I know it won’t. And I know you know it won’t. It’s been over 15 years for you, struggling with endogenous depression and bipolar disorder. Medication is the predominant, if not only, answer. But for people like us, and others in a line of work that doesn’t provide medical insurance or a drug plan, it can be next to impossible to get the help we need. I don’t know if you’re on any medication right now. I’d wager to guess you’re not, and that you haven’t been for some time.

Please call 911 for yourself. Please seek the help of CAMH, or another health care provider. Check yourself into an in-patient psychiatric ward at your nearest hospital, where such resources will be at your fingertips. I beg of you.

When I was 16 years old, my first boyfriend killed himself. He struggled for several years with endogenous clinical depression. His father spent the better part of his own life struggling with severe clinical depression, and is still medicated to this day. My boyfriend at the time was simply genetically predisposed to depression, and couldn’t handle his inability to control his emotions. He attempted suicide a couple of times, and lied about what had actually happened. I was too young, and too inexperienced at the time to really understand what was happening. He’d been rushed to the hospital after having taken a few too many pain killers after a night of drinking. At 15 (when this incident happened), I trusted him. He said it was just an accident. I knew nothing about depression, so I didn’t question it. It wasn’t until he succeeded that I really understood what happened. It was, and still is, the most painful experience of my young life.

What he’d done that really made things worse was going off his medication unsupervised. He thought he could handle it on his own. He felt he should be able to, and if he couldn’t that he was somehow a failure. By going on and off his medication, he sent himself into a darker hole, a place of no return.

You cannot do this alone, and unaided. I know you know this, but I need to tell you this. To tell you that I know you’re trying to be strong. I know you’re pushing as hard as you can to fix yourself. But you need help. It isn’t a sign of weakness. It isn’t a sign of anything short of bravery to ask for help. I’ve been in and out of therapy for a number of years since I was 16, and dealt with depression in various different forms. I’ve never suffered as you have. As you do, on a daily basis. But I know that you cannot hesitate to ask for help. You must.

I don’t know where the light is at the end of the tunnel. But I know it exists. The problem is that the road to a full recovery is long, arduous, and incredibly painful. You’ve been walking that road for over 15 years, on a constant uphill slope. It takes a minimum of 6 months for any behavioural medication to start showing even the slightest of effects. In that time, you still have to deal with your bipolar disorder, and your depression, along with the normal stresses of everyday life we all face. The struggle will get worse before it gets better, and it will be a long road.

But it will get better. It will improve. And you will notbe alone.

You are not alone. I know you know that, but sometimes it helps to be told that. Your pain is real. But it can be treated.

I have been thinking of you all morning. I am heartsick that I didn’t know about your cry for help until this morning, and I am sorry that I didn’t reach out to you sooner. I am overjoyed at how many people have been reaching out to you, and so thankful that people have been so supportive. I wish I could take all your pain away, and bring you straight to that light at the end of the tunnel. But I can’t. No one can but yourself. But we will be here, all of us, supporting you along the way.

Please use one of these resources today. They are all wonderful institutions. Please go to one of these emergency departments today. I can’t beg you enough.

Back in September, Marvin Kren’s The Station made its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival through Midnight Madness, a programme dedicated to the dark, the twisted, and the horrific in cinema. The atmosphere is that of a community engaged and in love with horror in all its multifaceted glory. The crowd is rowdy, and eager for fun. The louder the audience reacts, the better the film. The Station elicited cheers and jeers from the audience in equal measure: we screamed together, we laughed as a single entity, and we loved every minute of this bloody creepshow. Renamed Blood Glacier by popular demand, Kren’s wickedly fun monster flick is back for one night through Sinster Cinema’s horror series at various cinemas throughout Canada.

Late in May, host Ryan McNeil asked me to join him as his guest for the birthday episode of the Matinee Cast. This is the end result. We bantered about Raiders of the Lost Ark, Romancing the Stone, and revisited an old discussion on Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Needless to say, Ryan is wrong. He’s testing things out on Sound Cloud, so be sure to try that format, but otherwise you can find him on iTunes or RSS.

Here’s another episode of The Dew Over for your perusal. Give us a listen, and subscribe at iTunes. Also, Jamie’s put out t-shirts for The Dew Over to raise money for the site. They’re $20, and all proceeds go towards the site and our further discussion of the history of the Academy.